Rothko’s last painting
SCARLET THREADWAY THROUGH GREY LIFE
(kitchen floor)

the hapless contortionist… falling hands firstthrough his own pockets

invisible waiting room
… seating for
the inevitably lost

runny eyelets?swollen tongues?you’ve got the shoe ‘flu, son

John W. Sexton was born in 1958 and lives in the Republic of Ireland. His fifth poetry collection, The Offspring of the Moon, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2013. A sixth collection, Futures Pass, is forthcoming from Salmon in 2017. His poem “The Green Owl” was awarded the Listowel Poetry Prize 2007 for best single poem, and in that same year he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry. His speculative poems are widely published and some have appeared in Apex, The Edinburgh Review, The Irish Times, Mirror Dance, The Pedestal Magazine, Rose Red Review, Silver Blade, Star*Line and Strange Horizons.